Weather and Traffic

Insight and Books

Stephon Clark, an African-American man, was killed by Sacramento police in his grandmother’s backyard last month, setting off protests and conflict over the police’s actions. Police initially said they thought Clark was armed. But after the shooting, the officers found no weapon on Clark, only an iPhone. The city’s police chief has been credited with responding quickly to the protests...

The Library was the place to be. Not the Central Public Library. But the blue-and-red rectangular meeting room at Hotel Van Zandt. It was the location for a Toast of the Town salon to support the Neal Kocurek Scholarship Fund for health sciences careers, operated by the St. David’s Foundation. Thirty or so lucky souls were treated to an enlightening public talk between journalist and author...

When Anne Keene, the Austin author of “The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team that Helped Win World War II,” was growing up, she knew that her father both loved and hated the game of baseball. She knew he adored it, loved the old players, told stories about them to the point that it became something of a family joke. But she also knew that he harbored...

The crowded courtroom reeked of stale sweat, and 92 immigrants filled all five benches, leaving standing room only for visitors and court personnel. “It’s packed in there,” said one of a dozen guards and deputy marshals stationed at the courtroom last week. “This is what it’s going to be like from now on — no more ‘catch and release.’” That&rsquo...

On beaches from North Carolina to Texas and throughout the wider Caribbean, one of nature’s great seasonal events is underway. Adult female sea turtles are crawling out of the ocean, digging deep holes in the sand and laying eggs. After about 60 days, turtle hatchlings will emerge and head for the water’s edge, fending for themselves from their first moments. I have spent 36 years studying...

School shootings like the one that took place in Santa Fe, Texas, on May 18 are often followed by calls for enhanced security measures. But Santa Fe High School already had many of these security measures in place. For instance, the high school had a school resource officer who responded to the attack. The school also had security cameras in place and had recently conducted active shooting training...

At least 10 people were killed at a Santa Fe, Texas, high school on May 18 after a classmate opened fire with a shotgun and a .38 revolver. The shooting came just three months after another teen shooter killed 17 in Parkland, Florida, sparking nationwide youth-led protests over gun violence – and a familiar debate over what changes could really make a difference. As a criminologist, I often...

If you stop by the side of the road in Texas to check out historical markers regularly, you likely read her words. If you attend lifetime learning clubs in the Austin area, you likely hear her speak. And if you browse the Texana section of any decent-size bookstore, at some point you’ll run across the name “Myra McIlvain” on the spines of histories, historical novels and nonfiction...

Tales of historical murder and mayhem mean a lot more when they happened on your street. We’re still reading Ken Roberts’ excellent “The Cedar Choppers: Life on the Edge of Nothing” (Texas A&M University Press), an account of the clans who lived mostly isolated lives in the Hill Country west and north of Austin. One incident of violence concerning a Teague clan member near...

Entrepreneur and speaker Paige Davis chronicles her breast cancer journey in “Here We Grow,” her debut memoir and self-help book. Davis was only 38 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The news was not a complete surprise; she had noticed a lump but delayed seeing a doctor due to her growing business, BlueAvocado. She and her family had endured too many recent brushes with...

While you watch the royal wedding on TV , your kids can be enjoying a story time all about a “Wedding of the Century.” And
while proud parents will be celebrating graduation at the University of Texas, you can give your kids a love of education
at the Summer Reading Splash! These are just some of the events happening this weekend. Look for a great weekend with highs...

Bob Spain a canoe along the Luling Zedler Mill Paddling Trail, a 6-mile stretch of the San Marcos River from the U.S. Hwy
90 crossing to the Zedler Mill. File photo by Kelly West/ AMERICAN-STATESMAN It’s tougher than you think to paddle a canoe in a straight line. I know, because I’ve been trying to perfect the skill (sporadically) for a few months now, with the help...

If death is unavoidable, so is funeral food. The desire to make food for a grieving family is embedded deep within us,
especially if you live in the South, says cookbook author Perre Coleman Magness. The Memphis, Tenn.-based author recently published “
The Southern Sympathy Cookbook: Funeral Food with a Twist” (Countryman Press, $22.95), which honors the long-held...

For all the optimism among those of us who are white people that America has moved into a post-racial era, the daily news reports say this isn’t the case. One of the latest racial “incidents” that grabbed headlines occurred in Philadelphia recently, when two African-American men were arrested in a Starbucks. After issuing an apology to the two men, Starbucks decided to close their...

We’re seeing more and more chefs and cookbook authors
booked at the downtown library, and tonight, food lovers have a chance to hear from esteemed chef Alon Shaya. Chef Alon Shaya will be in Austin on May 14 for an appearance at the Central Library downtown. Contributed by Rush Jagoe. The James Beard-winning Shaya, who was born in Israeli and immigrated to Philadelphia when...

The Library was the place to be. Not the
Central Public Library. But the blue-and-red rectangular meeting room at
Hotel van Zandt. It was the location for a
Toast of the Town salon to support the
Neal Kocurek Scholarship Fund for health sciences careers, operated by the
St. David’s Foundation. Thirty...

Reader Craig Scott contacted our Austin Answered project: “I recently saw a photo of people getting baptized in the springs at Bluff Springs dated back in the 1940s,” he writes. “It had a concrete enclosure. Can you run a story on where the actual springs were or are?” The compelling image, shared on the Facebook page of the Manchaca-Onion Creek Historical Association by Joy...

Border Patrol agents found the man walking a little boy up a dirt road north of the Rio Grande near Mission, with eight other Central American migrants. The pair wore matching blue-striped polo shirts. Ely Fernandez explained that he was a taxi driver who had fled San Pedro Sula, a notoriously dangerous city in northern Honduras. Fernandez, 43, said a gang had threatened to kill him for not paying...

The terrible beauty of life along the nation’s lower margins is summoned in Jesmyn Ward’s “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” a bold, bright, and sharp-eyed road novel. In present-day Mississippi, citizens of all colors struggle much as their ancestors did against the persistence of poverty, the wages of sin, and the legacy of violence. Thirteen-year-old Jojo is a sensitive African-American...

The school year may not be quite over, but summer reading lists are already out in many Central Texas districts. Time for some real-life inspiration with the Summer Reading Splash, a revamped and expanded kickoff event for Austin Independent School District’s 5 Book Dive Summer Reading Program. It’s a daylong series of author talks, panels, hands-on activities and book signings &mdash...

In 2008, brothers Derek and Chad Sarno, who grew up in New England, founded
Wicked Healthy, a website with recipes and
videos for making their signature “80 percent healthy, 20 percent wicked” lifestyle. They are “plant pushers, not meat shamers”
with years of chef experience in restaurants and global grocery chains. Derek, ,left, and Chad...

As far as Edward Burger is concerned, college students need more than anything to become agile thinkers. And as president of Southwestern University since 2013, he’s trying to reinvent higher education with that goal in mind. Central to the effort is Paideia, an interconnected curriculum that he inherited from the previous president, Jake Schrum, and that Burger is putting on steroids at the...

Mother’s Day can be the loneliest holiday for stepmoms. The children they are helping to raise are with their mothers. They’ve
often helped create something special for the children’s mother and often the work they do is not acknowledged. “You go to Starbucks and they don’t know you’re not a mother and they wish you a Happy Mother’s Day,&rdquo...

It’s
Teacher Appreciation Week around these parts, and it’s also
“Magnolia Table” season. “Magnolia Table” is the new cookbook from Joanna Gaines, and it sold 169,000 copies in its first week, more than recent books
from Ina Garten and Ree Drummond. Addie Broyles / American-Statesman Of course, that’s the name of Joanna...

The flowers. Good heavens, the flowers. This represents only a fraction of David Kurio’s cascading floral arrangements at Red, Hot and Soul for Zach Theatre. Michael
Barnes/American-Statesman David Kurio‘s cascading floral arrangements filled the eye at every angle during the
Red, Hot
and Soul gala, staged in the
...

Jeffrey Kerr offers a sturdy historical novel recounting the adventures and misadventures of the second president of Texas in “Lamar’s Folly.” “Some say that if Mirabeau Lamar hadn’t shot the buffalo he wouldn’t have become president.” That’s as promising an opening line as any, and Kerr (“Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas,&rdquo...

The rain is coming… but it will go away in time for Saturday and Sunday. Enjoy these Austin family events. Science Mill.
Fun with Chemistry.
University of Texas Women in Natural Sciences group sponsors hands-on activities. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Science Mill,
101 Lady Bird Lane, Johnson City.
sciencemill.org Bullock...

When the Zetas arrived in Allende a decade ago, they infiltrated the very fiber of the hardscrabble ranching and coal mining town about 45 minutes south of the Rio Grande and the Texas city of Eagle Pass. The cartel members started construction companies and money exchange businesses. They hosted concerts and opened restaurants. They showed up at holiday parties and their kids went to local schools...

Austin author Natalia Sylvester’s second novel, “Everyone Knows You Go Home,” interweaves past and present, America and Mexico into the legacy of a family divided by its own stories. The day of her wedding, Isabel meets her new husband’s father’s ghost. Omar is trying to repair the damage he left his son, Martin, and wife, Elda, by persuading Isabel to give him a chance...

The Lone Star Library has released a second edition in paperback of “Texas Towns: From Abner to Zipperlandville,” revised by Paris Parmenter and John Bigley from the late Don Blevins’ nifty thematic guide to name origins, settlement dates and driving directions for hamlets, villages and towns all over the state. Here are some choice, out-of-the-way spots in the greater Austin area...

Soon it will be hot. Very hot. For many, too hot to party in Austin. That’s why we urge you to savor the last semblance of
spring and hit this circuit of more than 40 parties hard. April 26:
Big Artist, Little Artist for Chula League. Mondo Gallery. April 27:
Women of Distinction Luncheon for Girl Scouts. AT&T Conference Center. April 27-29...

The Census Bureau in 2020 will conduct its once-a-decade population count. It’s expected to reveal significant growth for Texas, which would mean the state could see its representation in Congress increase by as many as three seats. But some fear those gains could be imperiled with the reinstatement of a citizenship question, which is expected to drive down participation, especially in states...

Bass Concert Hall will host “A Conversation with President Bill Clinton” at 7:30 p.m. June 10. Clinton will discuss “The President is Missing,” his new novel co-authored with bestselling writer James Patterson. This is the first time a president has collaborated with a bestselling novelist on a work of fiction. Tickets go on sale April 27 and range from $49.50 to...

Former hosts of the wildly popular “Fixer Upper” series, Joanna and Chip Gaines
stopped by “Today” this morning to talk about two firsts:
her first cookbook, which comes out today, and his first marathon, which will also be Waco’s first marathon,
slated for May 6. Joanna and Chip Gaines were guests on the “Today” show...

A reader asks our Austin Answered project: “Was the Continental Club a sleazy topless bar back in the early 1960s? I remember having a roommate in 1963 who danced there.” Yes. What was founded by Morin Scott in 1957 on South Congress Avenue as a swanky jazz supper club became by the early ’60s what has been variously described as a “burlesque,” “strip club&rdquo...

A regular joe stirs up a whole pot of trouble when he meets a damsel in distress in Christopher Moore’s “Noir.” Renowned satirist Moore offers up a soft-boiled take on the hard-boiled tradition personified by the likes of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler in this messy, comic mystery that often goes off the rails. The book does offer a fascinating setting in San Francisco circa...

Six-year-old Ryland Ward jumps down from his uncle Michael’s lap and bounds across the job site. There’s chocolate ice cream, he’s heard, his favorite. Climbing onto the minitractor parked in front of the house, Ryland holds the carton in his good hand and gnaws at the lid. He’s intent on opening it himself, but as chocolate begins to seep out the sides, he hands it to Michael...

Uli knows if they can make it to the highway, they’ll live. With 25 feet to go before impact, he can’t even scream before the prop plane his brother is piloting crumples into the ground, the sound a “thundering crack of flesh on metal.” Surviving the crash turns out to be the least of Uli’s worries, though, as Daniel Peña illuminates in his keenly observed debut...

An augmented soldier fights against apocalyptic nightmares in a brutal war to save humanity in Robert Ashcroft’s “The Megarothke.” Debut novelist Ashcroft unleashes a witch’s brew of macabre, Lovecraftian imagery in this strange horror novel that couches a heavy emotional arc within its video game-like setting. Our narrator is former LAPD officer-turned-cybernetic survivor...

A reader asks our Austin Answered project: “Why do politicians and construction companies place their names on public property? These places are for people. They are not billboards.” We asked him to clarify: “Do you mean the cornerstones and dedication plaques that go onto structures honoring the folks who authorized them, or paid for them, or built them?” The reader sent a...

Most schoolchildren learn about Abraham Lincoln’s history-making stance against slavery and his untimely end at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. But most probably have no idea how close he came to an even earlier demise due to his own youthful mudslinging. Austin-area author Donna Janell Bowman illuminates this little-known episode in her newest nonfiction picture book, “Abraham Lincoln&rsquo...

Facial expressions and body movements, whether we make them knowingly or not, can persuade people. As experts in political discourse and facial displays – how scientists often refer to facial expressions – we have analyzed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s five-hour Senate hearing on April 10. We looked at what kinds of questions senators asked and how Zuckerberg answered them. What...

It will be nothing like last weekend — we promise. No sudden cold snap that made outdoor activities just icky. It might rain
Friday morning, but then you’ll be good to go to be outside with your family. Here are some events happening in and around Austin for little ones and teens alike: Luke Keyes, of Austin Oddities was on hand to help kids and grown-ups in the art of super...

At 58, I joke with people that I love being a middle school librarian because I’m still so in touch with my adolescent self. As a late baby boomer, the mother of “late” millennials, and a teacher of teens since 1985, I thought I understood teen world. In the last two or three years, I’ve noticed some rapid changes. Then I ran across Jean M. Twenge’s illuminating book...

Who is in charge of the national security policy of the United States? That question is reasonable, given the turmoil in the Trump administration’s national security team. That core team is made up of the national security adviser, the National Security Council and the secretaries of Defense and State – and many of those team members have been ousted and replaced over the last year. I...

Amazon Books opened its first Texas store at the Domain Northside last month. Here’s a guide to help you know what to expect. As evidenced by the purchase of more than 400 Whole Foods stores, Amazon is investing heavily in physical retail outlets, despite its dominance as an online company. The 4,800-square-foot bookstore at the Domain Northside, which opened in March, is an effort...

Need another reason to read and play with your babies and toddlers?
A study out of New York followed children from birth to age three and then assessed them at age 4 1/2, about a year and a
half after they were part of a reading program.
Their parents were given Reach Out and Read tools to help them read and play with their children. Then a subset were video...

President Donald Trump recently announced his plan to dispatch National Guard troops to the southern border to assist with security efforts. The Army National Guard is the oldest defense force in the nation, formed in 1636 as three militia regiments in the Massachusetts Bay Colony armed to defend against the Pequot Indians. The actual term “National Guard” was first used in 1824 for New...

Our story about the Stallion Drive Inn, a comfort food spot on North Lamar Boulevard, stirred strong memories among our readers. Steve Hamlett remembers cheap, good food — and lots of it. He describes a sign on the side of the building that read: “Flash Your Lights.” “Were diners supposed to flash their car lights to let the people inside know that more customers were arriving?&rdquo...

More than 110 movies are screening this summer as part of the Paramount Summer Classic film series. Here are 30 not to miss. There are others worth seeing, of course, but are 30 really good ones. “Stormy Weather” (7 p.m. May 31) This 1943 picture remains one of the most important musicals ever made (what with its staggering African-American cast). Starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson...

As we who live here are painfully aware, Texas can seem absolutely baffling to outsiders. In his latest book, “God Save Texas,” Lawrence Wright takes the myth and truth of the Lone Star State head-on in a series of essays that, the more one reads them, feel like a Texas 101 primer, the sort of thing to hand your relatives back east to explain How We in Texas Live Now. Here are eight...

Mohsin Hamid (“Discontent and Its Civilizations,” 2014) crafts a richly imaginative tale of love and loss in the ashes of civil war in “Exit West.” The country — well, it doesn’t much matter, one of any number that are riven by sectarian violence, by militias and fundamentalists and repressive government troops. It’s a place where a ponytailed spice merchant...

Don Graham, the J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of English at the University of Texas, is probably the pre-eminent critic of Texas culture, and it’s hard to imagine anyone better to tackle a book about one of the biggest – and best – movies ever made about the state: “Giant.” In his new book, Graham starts in May 1955, when members of the press are invited to the Warner...

The second annual Austin Bookstore crawl takes place April 28. After all, it’s the season of brick-and-mortar-retail celebration. Record Store Day takes place April 21; Free Comic Book Day on May 5. Participating ATX Bookstore crawl include: HalfPrice Books (All 7 Locations) Here is the deal, according to the website: “Visit three or more of the participating bookstores on April 28...

Lauren Hilgers’ “Patriot Number One” is an affecting portrait of a Chinese dissident who found a home among like-minded democrats in faraway New York. Journalist Hilgers, who has covered China for the New Yorker and Businessweek, among other publications, met Zhuang Liehong in his home village on the southern coast of China. There, in 2011, as she reported, villagers had rebelled...

An aimless young man decides to get his life together, but life has other plans in Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy.” Mike Muñoz doesn’t quite know what he wants out of life, but he knows he deserves better than what he’s got now: a terrible job cutting lawns, a truck that barely runs, and a tiny house packed with a disabled brother, an exhausted mother, and his mother&rsquo...

St. Louis-based comic book publisher Lion Forge is joining the relief efforts to assist those still in need in Puerto Rico after the destruction of Hurricane Maria. All profits from Lion Forge’s just-released “Puerto Rico Strong” anthology, written and illustrated by some of the top Puerto Rican and Latino talent in the comic book industry, will go to the United Way of Puerto Rico...

A travesty of the Texas judicial system leads to death-row vindication in Anthony Graves’ memoir, “Infinite Hope.” Though Graves served more than 18 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, his account is largely without bitterness or outrage — and is all the more powerful because of it. The facts speak for themselves. On a night when the author was with his girlfriend...

Jacqueline Jones’ “Goddess of Anarchy” is a tough-minded biography of a fiery revolutionary whose activism spanned the decades from Reconstruction to the New Deal. Bancroft Prize winner Jones evinces considerable respect for her subject, a woman born into slavery who gained fame in 1880s Chicago as one of the anarchist movement’s most vocal advocates of violent revolt. But...

This month’s Statesman Selects is a little different. Usually, we highlight a work of fiction or nonfiction — something with some sort of narrative. This month’s Selects is, well, a textbook. An incredibly cool textbook. In “The Writer’s Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction,” Austin author (and program director for the Writers’ League of Texas) Michael Noll...

Walter Mosley’s “Down the River Unto the Sea” begins what looks to be a new series with a protagonist whose territory covers New York City’s outer boroughs—and, yes, that means Staten Island, too. Joe King Oliver was an ace investigator with the NYPD until his roving eye helped him get framed for sexual assault. “Trouble ambushed me with my pants down and my nose...

Imagine trying to write about your mother when she was a kid. Where would you start? What details would you include? To write “Betty Before X,” Ilyasah Shabazz had to think hard about those questions. Her mother, Betty Shabazz, was an important civil rights leader. When her husband, Malcolm X, was assassinated in 1965, Betty Shabazz continued his work in social justice until her death...

“Call Me by Your Name” is a graceful debut novel by memoirist/literary scholar André Aciman (“False Papers,” 2000,), joining young love to his familiar themes of dislocation and wandering. One could be arrested in certain parts of the world for the young love in question, which joins a 17-year-old bookish musician who is improbably well educated — not many college-educated...

Actor/director/activist/colorful personality Sean Penn is coming to Austin to chat with historian Douglas Brinkley about Penn’s debut novel “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff.” They will be talking about the book and probably some other things (Penn’s Oscars, his blend of activism and journalism, not finding Chris Rock’s 2005 Oscars joke about Jude Law funny) 7 p.m. April 3...

A Mexican-American student of international relations becomes a United States Border Patrol agent to learn what he can’t in the classroom in Francisco Cantú’s “The Line Becomes a River.” Cantú is a talented writer who knows where to find great material, even as he risks losing his soul in the process. His Mexican mother had worked as a ranger in West Texas, and...

Lanny J. Davis, former special counsel to former President Bill Clinton, takes on the 2016 election and James Comey’s effect on the outcome in “The Unmaking of the President 2016.” According to Davis (“Close-Up: Twelve Months at Yale,” 2017), the negative effect is indisputable, and he has the data, compiled both before and well after the election, to back up his claims...

About seven or so years ago, something happened to Austin author Elizabeth Crook’s family that planted the seed for her fifth novel, “The Which Way Tree.” They were out in the Hill Country celebrating the birthday of her daughter, who was turning 6. At some point in the day, her then-14-year-old son and a friend decided to go to a nearby cabin to go camping. They took off about noon...

It’s well established that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not all that closely related to whatever has gone on or will go on in the comic books published by Marvel. However, there’s also no getting around the fact that the MCU have always taken characters, plot points, situations and relationships straight from the comics. Which is to say, you don’t have to read the comics to understand...

Michael Pollan knows you’re probably a little surprised to hear about his next book. The author known for the seminal book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” has been labeled a food writer, but he prefers thinking about himself as a nature writer. Through that best-selling book and several others, including “Cooked” and “The Botany of Desire,” Pollan uses food...

A small-town chief of police acquires a dog en route to solving a vicious case of murder in Terry Shames’ “A Reckoning in the Back Country.” Samuel Craddock, who’s come out of retirement to run the local police department on a shoestring, finds his resources stretched when Margaret Wilkins reports her husband missing. Dr. Lewis Wilkins, last seen leaving the couple’s...

Ten years later, a school shooting in West Texas is revisited from the perspective of a family it changed forever in Stefan Merrill Block’s “Oliver Loving.” What we know, what Eve Loving, her husband, Jed, and their son, Charlie, know, is this: a recent graduate named Hector Espina Jr. returned to the Bliss Township School campus the night of the homecoming dance, shot the drama...

Helen Thorpe’s “The Newcomers” is a collection of personal stories of child refugees as they integrate into American society. Focusing on one classroom in South High School in Denver, Colo., Thorpe (“Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War,” 2014) dives deep into the lives of 22 students, all refugees, who were just some of the many who enrolled in...

It’s tempting to eschew picture books once children are past a certain age. From suggested age ranges to the excitement over young readers’ ability to move into more challenging texts, there are plenty of reasons driving the shift into heftier volumes as the years progress. But it would be a mistake to leave picture books behind completely. Nonfiction picture books, with their mix of well-researched...

The Harry Ransom Center at UT has acquired the archive of American playwright Arthur Miller (1915–2005). Obtained from the Arthur Miller Trust, the archive spans Miller’s career. During his lifetime the Ransom Center had a close association with Miller, who first donated a group of early play manuscripts and working notebooks to the Center in the early 1960s. This new acquisition...

The 23rd Texas Book Festival will take place Oct. 27 and 28 in and around the Texas State Capitol in downtown Austin, it was announced Wednesday. The 2017 Festival Weekend was the most successful on record, with 50,000 attendees and about 300 authors coming together on November 4 and 5, 2017. The annual First Edition Literary Gala, which took place Nov. 3 of last year, raised more than $630,000 for...

At one point during a free-ranging conversation about Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon, acid and the ability to just hop on a plane in the 1970s, increasingly legendary Texas journalist Bill Minutaglio asks me a question I was not expecting: “Joe, do you think young people even know who Timothy Leary is?” It’s important to note that the man didn’t ask it in a condescending, &ldquo...

“Achtung Baby” is an American woman’s account of how she altered her parenting methods to mimic her new German neighbors. When Sara Zaske (“The First,” 2012) moved with her husband and young daughter to Berlin, she discovered that her German neighbors handled parenting quite differently than what she was used to in the U.S. In this well-written mix of personal reflections...

While there were long lines and reports of sellouts in Washington, D.C. for “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff’s book on Donald Trump, Austinites will have to wait until Monday, Jan. 8, for the book. While, earlier this week, publisher Henry Holt and Company moved up the pub date to Jan 5. in response to Trump’s objections to the book, some distributors were unable to...

In Boyd Taylor’s “Necessities,” a Texas lawyer comes to the aid of a war veteran who’s on trial for murder. Reporter David Lewis, a double amputee since a street battle in Iraq, is pleasantly surprised by his run-in with Cordelia Lehrer. The two, who’d had a one-night stand in college, quickly reignite their intimacy. But there may be more to the reunion: Cordelia invites...

Maude Julien’s “The Only Girl in the World” is a disturbing, engrossing memoir of a bizarre, highly abusive childhood. Psychotherapist Julien makes her literary debut with a gripping chronicle of growing up imprisoned and tormented by her parents. Isolated on a walled estate not far from Dunkirk, Julien was raised to become a “superior being,” destined to “control...

Brandon Sanderson’s “Oathbringer” is an epic fantasy about the return of an ancient, world-destroying evil. God is dead. And Odium, the god who killed the Almighty, is unleashing terrible monsters to destroy humankind. Dalinar Kholin has bonded with the powerful spren known as the Stormfather and led his people to the lost city of Urithiru, but his work is just beginning. Now he...

The idea that evolution could suddenly move backward may seem like an incredible fantasy, but in Louise Erdrich’s dreamlike, suspenseful “Future Home of the Living God,” it’s a fitting analogue for the environmental degradation we already experience. A biological apocalypse has animals suddenly appearing in trippy, shocking manifestations — a dragonfly with a 6-foot wingspan...

New to Austin and wondering where to get your weekly comics fix, fill out your trade paperback collection and flip through back issues? Here is a guide to Austin’s comic book specialty shops. Note: This list contains only comic book shops. Comics and graphic novels can be found at many Austin stores selling new and used books, including BookPeople and any Barnes and Noble or Half Price Books...

Perhaps you want to give something that will last longer than the latest electronic gadget. Maybe you just want to keep your young ones reading over winter break. Whatever your motivation, the solution beckons on these pages — new titles that entertain, inform and engage: Your holiday gift list starts here. Hortense finds her shadow tiresome. It constantly trails after her through the woods...

On the very first page of “Santa’s Husband” is a picture of Santa -- he is black, wearing glasses and in a Santa outfit. “This is Santa,” it reads. On the opposite page, a picture of a white guy who looks a lot more like the guy in a Coke ad. “This is Santa’s husband,” it reads. So, already, it’s a not a stereotypical take on the Jolly Old Elf...

There are many lovely, canny and insightful things in Reza Aslan’s new book “God: A Human History,” written in Aslan’s clear, accessible style. My favorite phrase, however, is on the back, where the line above the blurb of endorsement reads: “Advance Praise for ‘God.’” Looking at that as a joke works on a few levels. According to most religions, of course...

New to Austin and wondering where to get your weekly comics fix, fill out your trade paperback collection and flip through back issues? Here is a guide to Austin’s comic book specialty shops. Note: This list contains ONLY comic book shops. Comics and graphic novels can be found at many Austin stores selling new and used books, including BookPeople and any Barnes and Noble or Half Price...

In Dana Barney’s futuristic thriller “Half Life,” a sequel to “Flatline” (2015), a conspiracy debunker uncovers evidence of an elite plot against the world. In Austin, Peter Richards used to be an investigative journalist but became the victim of a conspiracy so stressful it gave him a heart attack. A mechanical heart restored his life (though he died and was revived...

Consider, if you will, the humble jellyfish. It’s a creature both 95 percent water and often possessed of one of the planet’s deadliest venoms. A creature that has existed in its current form, more or less, for millions of years, yet is one of the planet’s most delicate. In some languages, jellyfish translates as “living water” — how cool is that? And yet, we don&rsquo...